Title: I’ll Stand Right Beside YouAuthor: Star star55Part: 4/?? (not sure yet)Rating: NC-17 (overall)Pairing: Danny/Dougie, Harry/Tom, Matt/JamesGenre: AU, Romance, DramaSummary:Life throws in the most unexpected situations, testing and challenging you. You can make it through knowing that someone will be right beside you…A/N: This is The long awaited sequel to The Heart Never Lies. I have had a lot of fun writing this! I am glad it is done and I can start on the third part!! This fic is entirely dedicated to Emma: orpheous87 because she beta-ed this book and the first one. Emma, you are brilliant *hugs tight*This chapter is dedicated to juddpoynter for reasons that shall be apparent a the end =)Disclaimer: Not mine *sigh* this never happened…

You need to have read The Heart Never Lies for this story to make sense. Read it (and comment!) if you haven’t yet.

Danny felt Dougie’s hand tighten in his own as soon as they entered the room full of people. It was the first time they were attending the GLBT group and both males were fairly nervous. Natalie had assured them there was nothing to worry about and that everyone was friendly and welcoming.

The two males found a secluded area to situate themselves. Danny scanned the room for a familiar face and he spotted Natalie waving enthusiastically at them. She turned to the couple she was standing with and said something. They nodded and she made her way over to where Danny and Dougie were standing.

“I’m so glad you both made it!” she said giving them a kiss and a hug each.

Danny smiled back at her and wrapped an arm around Dougie’s waist lovingly.

“Anyway, we’re going to start introductions soon, so get mingling, talk to someone!” she grinned broadly and left them alone again.

“Sometimes I think she is way too chipper for her own good,” Dougie chuckled.

Danny laughed and agreed with him. His eyes travelled over the room, noticing there wasn’t really a pattern going on with who was there. There were groups of people, and couples all chatting amongst themselves.

“Oh wow,” Dougie muttered.

“What?” Danny asked, trying to find who the blond was looking at.

“I didn’t know he was gay!” he exclaimed.

“Hang on, who?” Danny asked, curious.

“Max,” Dougie said surreptitiously pointing out a slim male who was chatting with two females.

He had short, spiky brown hair with blond and red tips. He had a very relaxed persona about him and Danny couldn’t help but think he seemed like a nice guy. He spotted Danny and Dougie looking at him and he smiled brightly, giving them a small wave.

Dougie waved back and looked up at Danny. “He’s in my art class,” the blond said. “He is really talented.”

However, before Danny could respond, Natalie called for everyone’s attention. She said she wanted everyone to introduce themselves as there were quite a few new people to the group. So, they all went around stating their names and what subject they were majoring in.

After all of the introductions, she told them all to mingle and get to know each other. People broke off again into groups and chatter soon filled the room yet again.

The two artists got talking about their current project and then onto their favourite artists throughout history. Danny felt a bit out of place, but he didn’t want to show it. So when Riley approached him, he welcomed the intrusion.

“How are you?” she asked.

“Good,” he nodded. “I never knew there were this many gay people at uni.”

Riley chuckled heartily. “You’d be surprised how many people don’t come to our meets,” she said.

“I didn’t even know about it until you and Nat mentioned it,” he said.

“We get that a lot,” she replied. “But it’s a great place to meet other gay people. We’ve helped a lot of people through some tough times in the last two years we’ve been running it.”

They continued to chat and were approached later on by Natalie who kissed Riley softly and claimed it was their best meet yet. The two females wrapped it up by thanking everyone for coming and hoping they had met someone new to talk to. She said for the next meet, it would be different, they wanted to organise something fun to do as a group.

Danny stepped away from the two females and slipped his arm around Dougie’s waist. He kissed the blonde’s neck and Dougie let out a little chuckle. He turned in Danny’s embrace and kissed him softly.

“Ready to go?” he asked his lover.

Dougie nodded and kissed him one last time before turning back to Max. “We’ll have to catch up soon,” he said with a small smile.

Max nodded. “Sounds great,” he said with a smile.

Dougie gave him a small wave and he and Danny left the building, hand in hand. They made their way to Danny’s car and when they got there, Dougie pushed Danny gently up against it, bodies flush together.

“Hello,” Danny said smile tugging at his lips.

“Hi,” Dougie breathed and then kissed him hotly.

Danny moaned lightly as Dougie’s tongue teased his. He didn’t really care that they were in the middle of a car park; he was more concerned that his hot boyfriend was intent on snogging him.

Dougie’s small hands slipped under his shirt and stroked his back in circles. “Want to go home yet?” he asked.

Danny went cross eyed as Dougie sucked on a sensitive spot on his neck. He groaned in response and pulled Dougie tight against him, hardness pressing into his lover’s thigh.

“I think we should go,” Danny panted. Dougie pulled back with a grin and kissed his kiss swollen lips lightly.

“Love you,” he replied. Danny repeated the words back to his lover and they got into his car.

*****

“That’s great Tyler, you’re really getting the hang of it now,” Danny said with a smile. It was mid Saturday morning and Tyler was his last student of the day. The young male had been struggling with the guitar since Danny had began teaching him, but recently, something just clicked and he was playing songs better than ever.

“I’m just going to get a drink, I want you to keep hitting them notes,” he said and exited the room.

He met Dougie in the kitchen; the blond was eating a pastry, and was wearing his art clothes. He had been in his ‘studio’ all morning working up another masterpiece no doubt. Danny smiled at him and kissed his cheek softly.

“How’s Tyler going?” Dougie asked around a mouthful of food.

Danny grinned. “Really good, he has gotten so much better since he first started, it’s amazing,” he uncapped the bottle of pop and took a long swig.

“You’re amazing for teaching him,” Dougie replied.

Danny smiled and kissed him softly, tasting the pastry on his lover’s lips. “What are you working on today?” he asked, pulling back.

“A family portrait for a client of Mike’s, they gave me a photo and wanted me to add pieces to it,” Dougie explained. “They’ve got additional members to the family now and he wanted me to include them for a wedding present.”

“How are you adding them in then?” Danny asked.

“I’ve been given pictures of the people to be added, and I’m just adding them in as naturally as I can,” Dougie replied.

They continued to talk for few minutes before Danny realised it was a little too silent in the house. “I’d better get back in there; it sounds like he’s stopped.”

Dougie nodded. “Have fun,” he grinned.

Danny winked at his lover and walked back into his music room to see Tyler putting his guitar in his case.

“Tyler?” Danny asked. “What’s wrong, mate?”

Tyler shot him a filthy look and continued to zip up his case.

“What’s going on?” he said curiously.

“My mum is going to be here in a second,” was all the dark haired boy said before leaving the room.

“Tyler, if something’s gone wrong, I think I should know about it,” Danny said, completely at a loss to what was going on.

A knock at the door interrupted whatever Tyler may have said. The teenager headed for the door and opened it, revealing his very pissed off mother.

“You ought to be disgusted with yourself,” she snapped, shooing Tyler out of the house.

“Mrs Peters, I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Danny said, shocked.

“I bring my son here to be taught how to play the guitar, not for him to phone me and tell me that he saw you kissing another male!” she said, repulsed.

“What?”

“Yes, my son phoned me up just now to say that you and him,” she pointed to Dougie who had just come into living room, obviously to see what the commotion was. “Were sucking each other’s faces off in front of him!”

Danny looked perplexed. “What I do with my partner is not your son’s concern,” he said. “And we weren’t ‘sucking each other’s faces off in front of him’ it was one small kiss and I wasn’t even aware that he was in the room.”

“It may not be, but it is disgusting and unnatural for two men to be together,” she fumed. “You ought to be ashamed, throwing your abnormality in the face of young children. Be assured that the other parents will be hearing about this!” with that, she stormed off, slamming the front door behind her.

Danny stood in the middle of the room, shocked. He didn’t even register Dougie’s arms going around his waist and his lover whispering in his ear how sorry he was. Danny let himself be led by Dougie to the couch and the younger male slid into his arms.

“Sorry, Dougs,” he whispered. “I just need to be alone right now.”

He missed the hurt look that came across Dougie’s face as he exited the house, nothing but his car keys in hand.

Danny didn’t know why Mrs Peters reacted the way that she did, he was sure that she knew he was gay, all of the other parents did. How could they not know? He lived with a male in a gay neighbourhood and the other two bedrooms in their house were taken up with other things. One of them only being a very girly decorated spare bedroom, courtesy of Jazzie.

He certainly didn’t know why he was letting it bother him so much either. With a heavy sigh, Danny turned his car around and headed back to his street. He was surprised to see how far he had driven in the few minutes since he had left the house. Taking a glance at his watch, he realised he hadn’t just been out a few minutes; he had been almost an hour.

Feeling very guilty for walking out on Dougie like he did, he made sure to get back home as quickly as he could. He parked his car and headed inside their house, calling out his lover’s name.

He received no answer and became worried. He checked the studio and saw only Dougie’s latest painting sitting on the canvas. He looked around the entire house and found no sign of his lover.

He left the house again and headed across the road, knowing that Dougie couldn’t have gone to Tom or Harry as they were out shopping for the morning. He knocked on the front door of Natalie and Riley’s house and waited for one of them to answer.

He knocked again and Riley answered, her dark red hair soaking wet and a towel wrapped untidily around her body.

“Danny, hey,” she greeted. “What’s wrong?”

“Have you seen Dougie?” he asked.

She shook her head and let him inside; she quickly got changed and met him in the kitchen. “What happened?”

Danny took a seat at the kitchen table and blurted out everything that had happened with Mrs Peters and his leaving Dougie by himself afterwards. He said how terrible he felt with leaving Dougie and how much he wanted to make it up to the blond.

Riley just talked to him, soothed him and made him calm down. She listened to his fears over Mrs Peters and what she could possibly do to him. She made him see reason that Mrs Peters couldn’t stop him teaching kids how to play the guitar because he was gay, no matter how much she may want to. She was one of a few homophobes in a town that was pretty much gay friendly.

Danny took out his phone and called his boyfriend again as Riley took the washing off the clothesline out the back. This time, Dougie answered.

“Dan?”

“Dougs, where have you been?”

“I didn’t know how long you were going to be, so I went out with Harry,” he replied.

“Are you home?” Danny asked.

“Almost, we’re driving,” Dougie replied.

“I’ll see you at home in a minute,” Danny said and hung up. He headed out to the back yard to say thank you to Riley.

“Don’t sweat it, you’re welcome anytime,” she smiled and ruffled his hair. “I’m glad it was me here, not Nat.”

“Why?” Danny asked.

“She gets a bit sore over these subjects, she hates when people are alienated for being gay,” Riley explained. “Her own sister won’t talk to her because she’s with me, another woman.”

Danny’s heart clenched. “That’s awful,” he said.

Riley nodded sadly. “It’s the harsh truth that people can be so mean,” she said. “But you’ve got us; you’ve always got us to come to, even if you think it’s over something stupid, we’re always here to talk.”

Danny hugged her tightly. “Thanks, Riley, you’ve been a great help,” he kissed her cheek and they parted, saying their good byes and Danny headed across the road to his house just as Harry’s car pulled up his own driveway. The brunette got out and walked with Dougie across the small path that came across into their yard.

Danny immediately took Dougie into his arms and apologised for leaving him. Dougie mumbled that he understood and just hugged him tighter.

“I’ll leave you to it,” Harry said.

Dougie broke away from Danny’s embrace to hug the cricketer tightly. “Thanks for today,” he said and kissed Harry softly on the lips.

Closing the door behind them, Danny kissed his beloved softly and apologised again for being such an idiot and leaving him. Dougie just told him it was okay, he understood perfectly why Danny had to leave. They talked over what Riley had said and they decided that they would talk to the other parents and see if they still wanted Danny to teach their children the guitar even though he would be openly telling them that he was gay.

It would be up to them to decide if they wanted him to continue teaching their children the guitar or if they wanted for him to cease lessons with them. He only hoped that Mrs Peters didn’t badmouth him before he got the chance to talk to them.